RTI applicants need not provide their address: Centre

New Delhi: In order to protect an RTI applicant from any adverse consequence, the Centre has directed the government departments not to insist on seeking their address if a post box number is being provided to them for communication.

So now if an RTI plea is filed with a post box number, the authorities cannot deny providing the information. The Centre has also directed the authorities not to disclose any personal details of the RTI applicants on the website.

According to reports, this was communicated in a letter by the Ministry of Personnel to all Central Government Ministries and departments, who act as public authorities mandated with providing information on RTI applications made to them, citing a judgement by the Calcutta High Court in this regard.

The order had come following a writ petition by Avishek Goenka who sought court's direction that the authority should not insist upon the detailed address of the applicant as and when any application is made under the Right to Information Act.

The interested parties could cause a threat to the activist and there have been past incidents of unnatural deaths of activists in the field, presumably by persons having vested interest to conceal the information that is asked for by the activist, the petitioner had said.